


30 day notice

by thunderylee



Category: KAT-TUN (Band), NewS (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon Universe, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-07
Updated: 2008-07-07
Packaged: 2019-02-05 05:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12787788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunderylee/pseuds/thunderylee
Summary: Jin gives Yamapi his 30 day notice.





	30 day notice

**Author's Note:**

> reposted from agck.

> ### 30.

“What’s this?”

Jin looks at the floor while Yamapi’s eyes stare at the top of his head. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Just take it.”

Yamapi accepts the folded piece of paper and starts to open it, pausing when Jin cringes like Yamapi’s going to hit him. “Why don’t you tell me what it says?” he says gently, keeping the paper folded and trying to remain calm for Jin’s sake.

“Thirty day notice,” Jin mumbles.

Yamapi’s sighing before he can stop it. “All right.”

Jin looks up finally, meets Yamapi’s eyes with a look of surprise and maybe a little hurt. “That’s all you have to say?”

“Seems like you’ve made up your mind.” Yamapi tucks the note into his pocket and returns to making his lunch. “Don’t let me stand in your way.”

Jin lingers long enough to make Yamapi uncomfortable, but before Yamapi can snap at him Jin grabs his keys and leaves, without his lunch, and without another thought Yamapi automatically makes him one too.

::

“You’re so stupid,” Ryo says in the midst of his upside-down sit-ups.

“After hearing that for so many years from you,” Yamapi says slowly, “it’s beginning to lose its effect.”

“You’re stupid,” Shige chimes in from where he’s doing Tegoshi’s hair.

Ryo thumbs towards Shige and nods, like Shige’s agreement makes it a justified fact.

“I haven’t known him any longer than you.” Yamapi frowns and plops down on the couch, folding his arms. “What makes you know him better than me?”

Ryo sighs like the weight of the world is on his shoulders, not just his own. “Who do you think he complains to about you?”

“He complains about me?” Yamapi repeats incredulously. “But I take care of him!”

“May I?” Tegoshi offers, letting Shige finish smoothing his hair before hopping off of the chair and facing the couch. “Akanishi doesn’t want you to take care of him.”

Yamapi blinks. “Huh?”

“He’s not your girlfriend,” Tegoshi continues. “He’s his own person.”

Yamapi thinks about Jin’s lunch he made this morning, sitting in the fridge next to his. “I’m doing too much,” he says, understanding. “I need to give him his space?”

Tegoshi nods slowly. “And?”

Yamapi sighs. “And let him leave peacefully.”

“He’s leaving?” Koyama gasped. “I can’t believe he would leave again.”

“Not everyone,” Yamapi clarifies. “He’s just leaving me.”

“Yamashita,” Shige says carefully, sitting next to his leader and guiding his head until it’s on his shoulder. “I couldn’t live with Koyama and he’s my best friend.”

“Yeah – wait, what?” Koyama looks appalled, stopping with half of his hair straightened to approach Shige with his hands on his hips. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you drive me batshit,” Shige says simply, petting Yamapi’s hair as the latter starts to fall asleep.

Koyama’s chin trembles, but Tegoshi puts an arm around him and pats his shoulder. “What Shige is trying to say is that even best friends need their space, right? Everyone wants their alone time, but people like Yamapi and Kei-chan who have always been surrounded by people don’t understand that.”

“Or that,” says Shige.

Yamapi rests on Shige’s shoulder, staring straight ahead at nothing as every single memory of he and Jin in the past year flies behind his eyes. Somehow this feels worse than anytime he’s had his heart stomped on by a girl.

Ryo rolls his eyes and flips down, pushing Koyama back to the mirror to fix his hair.

Massu kneels down and offers Yamapi the rest of his creme-filled donut, and when Yamapi shakes his head, he knows that this is serious.

> ### 27.

Yamapi comes home after spending a couple nurturing days with Koyama and finds his apartment in total disarray. There’s a pile of dishes in the sink, the garbage overflowing with beer and liquor bottles, and there are open boxes all over the place where Jin has supposedly started packing.

Jin’s in his room judging by the bass thumping from that direction, but Yamapi thinks about what Tegoshi said and leaves him be, cleaning up the kitchen and taking out the trash in silence. An hour later, the kitchen is sparkling but Yamapi’s eyes are cloudy as he surveys the boxes and leaves them where they are.

Jin opens his door to cross the hallway and catches Yamapi’s eye, the scruff on his face and unstyled hair giving him away. He’s drunk at two in the afternoon, looks like he hasn’t showered in a couple days, and Yamapi can’t look at him. He turns around and walks right out the door, figuring that anything he would need is already in the bags he hasn’t unpacked yet.

> ### 25.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Kame said casually, sipping his latte. “It’s not like he said he wanted to stop being friends.”

“He’s not acting any different at work?” Yamapi asks, struggling to keep his eyes open from not sleeping for two nights.

“Not that I’ve noticed,” Kame replies. “He’s still the same insufferable prick he’s always been.”

Yamapi frowns. “Well, thanks for meeting me -”

“Yamashita,” Kame says slowly, flicking his eyes up over his coffee cup and offering Yamapi a pitying look. “Don’t you know how he is by now? You’re holding him back. He can’t exactly bring girls home when his roommate is Yamashita Tomohisa.”

Yamapi narrows his eyes. “It’s not like that at all.”

“I wouldn’t know, would I,” Kame says darkly. “He hasn’t talked to me since before he went to America. You have some nerve coming to me like we’re friends. All I know is how he acts at practice and on stage, like he’s God’s gift to everything and the rest of us aren’t worthy to breathe his air. Forgive me if I have no sympathy for you.”

Kame tosses some notes on the table, excuses himself, and leaves.

Yamapi lets his head fall to the table, careless to the muffin crumbs that get in his hair.

> ### 21.

Takki’s lap isn’t nearly as comfortable as it once was, but Yamapi’s grown considerably since then and now he understands why Tegoshi doesn’t sit on Ryo anymore.

“I don’t know what to do,” Yamapi says slowly, resisting the urge to cry on his senpai like he’s fourteen again and MatsuJun made fun of his hair. “I don’t want him to leave.”

“Why?” Takki asks simply, pushing Yamapi’s hair out of his face and embracing him as much as he can.

Yamapi thinks about this. He can do that with Takki; anyone else would jump to conclusions or rush him, but Takki’s always been patient and somehow manages to make Yamapi figure out his problems for himself instead of being told.

“I like having him around,” Yamapi says finally. “He makes me happy.”

“As a friend?” Takki prods gently.

“Best friend,” Yamapi clarifies. “I thought we were having fun together. We would stay up late and be stupid. We could do absolutely nothing and it was okay because it was the two of us.”

Takki nods, rocking the grown Yamapi in a way that makes him want to cry even more, if only because Jin doesn’t have this kind of relationship with his senpai anymore. Who can Jin go to when he needs someone to take care of him? Someone who won’t judge or tell him what to do. It makes Yamapi sad to think about how Jin has to go through this – whatever it is – all alone, if his bandmates all feel the way Kame does and now he’s pushing Yamapi away too.

> ### 18.

“Leader to leader,” Yamapi tries, using his last resort to fix whatever happened before it’s too late. “What’s going on?”

“If I have to tell you, you don’t deserve him,” Ueda says bluntly.

“Everyone’s telling me something different and he won’t talk to me,” Yamapi goes on, his voice a bordering whine.

Ueda laughs, like it’s funny. “You know better than to listen to other people, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what to do!” Yamapi exclaims. “You were my last hope.”

Ueda shakes his head. “That’s sad.”

Yamapi looks down. “I’m going to lose him, aren’t I.”

“With that attitude, you will,” Ueda says calmly.

“ _Please_ ,” Yamapi begs, bowing for effect. “Please tell me how to make him happy.”

Ueda pulls him up by his hair. “You’re asking the wrong person. My job isn’t to make him happy. Maybe it works that way in your group, but in mine it’s up to each member to handle his own business before stepping foot in this building or on stage. Akanishi does that just fine, therefore whatever’s happening between you two is none of my concern.”

“So cold,” Yamapi comments.

Ueda shrugs. “With everything that’s happened with my group over the years, I’ve never been the reason for his pain. Because he didn’t let me.”

Yamapi looks up, blinking until Ueda’s face is in focus. “I have a feeling you’re trying to tell me something.”

“So is he,” Ueda says cryptically, nodding politely before taking his leave.

Yamapi falls against the door as it closes, grasping for something he can’t reach and yearning for something he doesn’t understand.

> ### 14.

When Yamapi comes home, fully intending to storm into Jin’s room and do whatever it takes to get him to talk, Jin’s stuff is gone and the next month’s rent is stacked neatly on the table.

> ### 10.

The last of Yamapi’s tears fall on a picture of the two of them the day they moved in.

> ### 5.

Ryo shows up with a bag of hard liquor. “You love me,” he says as he lets himself in and takes a seat on the floor next to Yamapi; the couch was Jin’s.

> ### 3.

He didn’t even know Nakamaru had his number, and he stares at the mail for several minutes before searching every pair of pants he owns for the folded piece of paper Jin gave him twenty-seven days ago.

_You didn’t read the letter, did you?_

> ### 1.

It takes Yamapi two days to track him down, and even though he’s too big to sneak into Jin’s window at his parents’ house like he did when they were kids, he manages to do it without killing himself or breaking anything.

Jin stares at him from the futon, where he sits cross-legged with his hands folded in his lap like he’s waiting for something, somebody. “You came.”

Yamapi scrambles to his knees, meeting Jin’s eyes and seeing for the first time what he’d refused to see up until now. His mouth opens and closes silently, no words coming out or even forming in his head.

“What took you so long?” Jin asks, looking seventeen years old again with big eyes and his heart on his sleeve.

“I’m a little slow,” Yamapi says, bowing his head enough to mean it.

When he looks up, Jin’s smiling and Yamapi’s sniffing back his emotions. “I wouldn’t have you any other way,” Jin says with an uncomfortable chuckle, his eyes still scared and unsure.

Three feet is all that separates them, but it feels like the longest journey Yamapi’s ever made as he takes Jin into his arms, feeling his body shake with whatever mixture of fear and hope is filling his senses. Jin doesn’t even breathe for a long time, slowly raising his arms to Yamapi’s back like he doesn’t think it’s real.

“Let’s go home,” Yamapi whispers, pressing his face into Jin’s shoulder to stop his relief from overflowing his eyes.

“I am home,” Jin replies. “Home is wherever we both are.”

> ### -335.

This time, Yamapi knows better when Jin presents him a folded letter and calls it a thirty-day notice. Without looking at it, he tosses it aside and grabs Jin around the waist, ignoring his squeals as he flings him over his shoulder and carries him down the hall.

He doesn’t have to read the letter. He already knows what it says, and even if he didn’t have it memorized, it’s mounted on the wall of their bedroom.

“But it’s different!” Jin wails as he’s tackled to the bed.

“Tell me what it says then,” Yamapi says, leaning his forehead against Jin’s and pinning him down with all four limbs.

“It says ‘I love you, dumbass’,” Jin says with a straight face.

Yamapi smiles. “Next year just tell me yourself.”

> ### -700

This year there are no notes, unless you count the song lyric booklet in the single.

_I’m not perfect and I’m not whole_  
I haven’t yet found what I’m looking for  
I’m not normal and I’m not sane  
I live my life from day to day

I look at you and I see me  
Reflected in your eyes, I’m happy  
Lessons learned and trust betrayed  
But your support never strayed

What I can’t take is not knowing  
If it’s just me whose feelings are growing  
Therefore I give you thirty days to decide  
Whether I should embrace them or hide

It’s not right, but neither are we  
This kind of everyday where we are free  
In this crazy existence I’ve been assigned to  
I can face anything if it’s with you


End file.
